Chapter Text
Svetlana was fascinated with robotics. On occasion, he dreamed of being one.
They were sweet dreams, when he had them. The first night he fell asleep next to her, he dreamt of a comfortable humming in his ears and the feeling of floating– not being all there.
A hand stiffened above him. He saw that it connected to a screwdriver that connected to his temple, which was numb. His hair was short, and he felt remarkably bare.
When he looked up, he saw his wife's face. Young and surprised and staring into his eyes with her own dark ones. Her hair was pulled back. She was alone.
All he could think was, what a beauty. He would have told her that too, only speech seemed to be escaping him. He recognized, of course, that he should be able to, but he couldn't seem to figure out how.
In the end, he just smiled. She began twisting the screwdriver and opening up some panels, flicking a switch, hitting a button.
Sleep hit him like a weight. He went willingly. He'd seen her smile back, shyly.
Svetlana was awake, thinking about the same thing–albeit, with less of the rosy tint her husband shared. He couldn't dream, she knew. She had an idea to make it work, but there was no way to install it now. Maybe in Viigand. He told her about the dreams he'd had. She couldn't make heads or tails of them, but then, she had an idea.
They were memories, in the same way that her or your or my dreams are bits of memory and imagination, but entirely different. They were whole memories, called into working memory because of a flaw, a flaw that had willed itself into existence because somebody had told him, or he'd simply read, about the concept of dreaming, and now that he expected to have them, the computer in his head malfunctioned and showed him its best guess.
What memories he dreamt about, she didn't know besides what he told her. She worried sometimes that he'd figure it out.
She remembered working on him near completion. There had been another flaw then. Their fault, this time. They'd forgotten to program him to stay asleep while work was done. ("Off" was the preferred term, but she couldn't think of it like that.) And so one day near the end of development, she'd been messing with him alone and he'd opened his eyes.
There were a lot of things that weren't ready, like– certainly not his memories –but, too, his language drivers and his sense of balance, and even touch in some places. His lips and fingertips were probably numb, but he didn't know that. All he knew right now was her face.
Was that good? Her heart pounded in her chest. They had mechanisms for creating memories. Were they able to wipe them, too? Maybe they could tell him it was a dream, but then there was no code telling him how to dream. She stared.
Then he did the strangest thing. He smiled. And– it was odd – he was the computer and she was the one about to crash. With shaking hands, she unscrewed what she had been screwing back in and hit the killswitch (which wasn't a killswitch, because that would be bad; it was simply an "off" button that sent him back into a deep sleep).
His eyelids fluttered. Before they could shut, the thought burst forth: He's pretty. She couldn't help a smile. He was working, he was alive, and he was drop-dead gorgeous. His hair hadn't begun to grow in yet– a work in progress, and a welcome one as long as there were things that needed to be done. The tufts that there were gently curled.
She shouldn't, she knew. It was a bad idea for a technician to fall in love with the project– that was understating it. It was a terrible idea. She should just log this and they could figure it out later. But… But…
She couldn't help it. He looked so charming. He didn't know anything, and yet he knew how to charm. Was that innate? Had somebody programmed that as a joke? She didn't know.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, calling her back to the present. "Svetka," Anatoly said. Her terrible idea had become a brilliant one, Mr. Molokov had told her. They could keep him close this way. They were husband and wife now. Things were fine. She didn't spend every day worrying herself with guilt. She loved him. He loved her. There was no more programming to be done. There was nothing wrong with this. "I dreamed about you again."
"Hmm." She didn't like pretending. Pretending she didn't know as much as she did, pretending not to be worried. She loved him, but there was always the lingering fear of being caught. "What did you dream about, my love?"
"You. I dreamt I was one of the robots you were building, and I was meeting you for the first time." It was scary, sometimes, how in sync their thoughts were. "I couldn't speak, yet, but I was thinking."
She wriggled in close. He emitted body heat slowly, but once it was there, it stuck. "What were you thinking of?"
"I was thinking of how beautiful you were." He kissed her head. "I was thinking that I was very lucky to have you for a mechanic."
"Oh, you flirt." She squeezed him. "How can you be so charming?"
"How can you be so lovely?" He squeezed her back.
It was times like this that she thought things might be okay. Even if he found out, things would be okay, right? This wasn't one of the conditions he loved her on. But then, he thought it was a dream. What would he say if he knew it wasn't? Would Svetlana still be his dear wife?
She buried her head in his chest. She didn't want to find out.